All of a sudden Uncle Wiggily heard some one coming along whistling, and then he heard a loud pounding sound, and next he saw Toodle Flat-tail, the beaver boy, walking in the woods.

“Oh, Toodle!  You’re the very one I want!” cried Uncle Wiggily.  “My hat is in a high tree and I can’t get it.  With your strong teeth, just made for cutting down trees, will you kindly cut down this one, and get my hat for me?”

“I will,” said the little beaver chap.  But when he began to gnaw the tree, to make it fall, the tree cried: 

“Oh, Mr. Wind, please come and blow on me so I can shake Uncle Wiggily’s hat to him, and then I won’t have to be gnawed down.  Please blow, Mr. Wind.”

So the wind hurried back and blew the tree this way and that.  Down toppled Uncle Wiggily’s hat, not in the least hurt, and so everything was all right again, and Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey and Toodle Flat-tail were happy.  And the tree was extra glad as it did not have to be gnawed down.

[Illustration:  Down toppled Uncle Wiggily’s hat, not in the least hurt.]

And if the little mouse doesn’t go to sleep in the cat’s cradle and scare poor pussy so her tail swells up like a balloon, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the peppermint.

STORY VIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PEPPERMINT

“Uncle Wiggily, would you mind going to the store for me?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, one morning, as she came in from the kitchen of the hollow stump bungalow, where she had been getting ready the breakfast for the rabbit gentleman.

“Go to the store?  Why of course I’ll go, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy,” answered the bunny uncle.  “Which store?”

“The drug store.”

“The drug store?  What do you want; talcum powder or court plaster?”

“Neither one,” answered Nurse Jane.  “I want some peppermint.”

“Peppermint candy?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.

“Not exactly,” went on Nurse Jane.  “But I want a little of the peppermint juice with which some kind of candy is flavored.  I want to take some peppermint juice myself, for I have indigestion.  Dr. Possum says peppermint is good for it.  I must have eaten a little too much cheese pudding last night.”

“I’ll get you the peppermint with pleasure,” said the bunny uncle, starting off with his tall silk hat and his red, white and blue striped rheumatism barber pole crutch.

“Better get it in a bottle,” spoke Nurse Jane, with a laugh.  “You can’t carry peppermint in your pocket, unless it’s peppermint candy, and I don’t want that kind.”

“All right,” Uncle Wiggily said, and then, with the bottle, which Nurse Jane gave him, he hopped on, over the fields and through the woods to the drug store.

But when he got there the cupboard was bare—.  No!  I mustn’t say that.  It doesn’t belong here.  I mean when Uncle Wiggily reached the drug store it was closed, and there was a sign in the door which said the monkey-doodle gentleman who kept the drug store had gone to a baseball-moving-picture show, and wouldn’t be back for a long while.